Last month, I contributed an article to the blog run by Write the World, a global writing nonprofit for teens. I work with Write the World in several capacities, and was a young writer on their site not too long ago. This particular piece served as a resource for the WtW’s June 2025 Sci-Fi and Fantasy competition and tackled the differences between science-fiction and fantasy (a thorny question that becomes more complex as the genres crossover and evolve).
This article was a throwback — as I researched the sci-fi and fantasy genres, I dove back into my old notes from the British Science-fiction course I took during my 2022 study abroad semester in Cambridge, England.
In that class, we began by reading the theorist Darko Suvin, who attempted to define the sci-fi genre by comparing it with fantasy using the terms ‘cognition’ and ‘estrangement’. As the English autumn deepened, we observed the development of sci-fi across a dozen classics, from Shelley to Wells to Stapledon. My notes reflected how innovative spirit and existential pondering of our texts mirrored the exploratory and existential environment of my first time abroad.
In my article, I attempted to distill the many nuances and questions embedded in the genre, and make the concepts accessible to teen writers from around the world. In a way, the writing came easy, as I was thrust back into the mindset of an eighteen-year-old version of myself. I’ve changed a lot, but I doubt I’ll ever lose my love for sci-fi and fantasy. It was a joy to recall the content and conversation I enjoyed throughout the class, and I’m glad to share the knowledge with other burgeoning writers!
madison zuñiga - Sculpting words 
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